General question: Building queries with diagramm/criteria pane vs. manually

SQL Server Administration
#1

I am a complete autodidact but I have been using SQL with SQL Server Management Studio for 12 years now, so I consider myself quite experienced. What happens if one had never been instructed in the first place by a pro, is that you get used to bad habits without knowing it. My former boss who had given me the first glimpses of writing queries is still our main IT person in the company. Now, if there are more complex SQL problems he usually asks me for help.

He certainly writes great queries, but what strikes me, is that he exclusivly uses the graphic diagramm pane together with the criteria pane to build his queries (views). I pretty much got used right from the start to writing the queries in sql code.

What is the general idea of the experienced user? Do I subestimate this method of building quieres? I know that many sql stuff can NOT be depicted graphically, so is this method a query wizard for dummies?

Thanks for sharing your ideas on that.
Martin

#2

Building the SQL script using a graphical tool speeds up things.

For simple queries, it's possible no further tweaking is needed and you can use the generated code as is.
For more complicated queries, you use the generated script as the skeleton and tweak it until it behaves as you want.

When you need a graphical tool because you can't write SQL at all, that wouldn't be a good thing.
It's efficient when you can write SQL code and use the generated code as a starting point.

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#3

to each his own. at the end of the day, if that is what he is comfortable with it's ok. I personally like to grind it out with direct pure script, I feel more in control. But what if the graphical tool is no more. then you would be up a creek without a paddle.

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